Data centers provide computing resources for use by one or more clients. These services may include computing, storage and networking services. For example, a data center may provide a machine to host an application, storage to store application data, cache to quickly respond to repeated data requests and networking to enable communication between resources. By making use of the data center services, a customer may pay for computing and/or resource use rather than purchasing anticipated hardware needs. This enables a customer to expand and contract use of computing services according to demand. For example, an application may be configured to request more storage as needed rather than a developer or administrator monitoring and anticipating use.
In response to a client requesting a computing resource, the data center may provision the requested resource and provide the resource to the client account. For example, a client may request a virtual machine running a copy of an operating system. In response to the request, the data center may assign a processing resource and volume to a client account to form the virtual machine. Using the processing resource, the data center may install the operating system on the volume. After installation, control of the virtual machine may be turned over to the client.